I'm excited to have someone from New York talking to us about
east coast gravel and definitely want to learn more about the dirty
bike gravel series.

Yeah, absolutely. East Coast, gravels a lot of fun and I'm
excited to kind of compare notes because I haven't done anything
out west and I listened to your show all the time and been hearing
about different events out there. So kind of a cool set up
there.

Right on. Well, just to start out, let's learn a little bit more
about you. How did you come to the sport of gravel cycling?

Um, I guess, uh, I'm a roadie first, so I think that's kind of
the angle that I come at from, um, but uh, I was never an elite
racer by any means. I'm just sort of a weekend warrior who likes
racing his bike, so, you know, I've done mountain races in cross
races and all that kind of stuff. Um, but definitely started in, in
the road scene and I think that's a little reflective in the events
we put on for sure.

And were you guys producing road events or other events?
Cyclocross previously?

Um, we were producing a crits before we did gravel, but we
didn't start too much before we started with gravel. We kind of
started those simultaneously. So we do a calendar of have to gravel
races that's paired with a third for gravel series and then we do a
summer event in July. That's two criterium, races and uh, Fondo
that will have a gravel option a as well this year. And we've,
we've put on road races in the past too. So we've kind of done a
little bit of all of it.

Yeah, it was interesting in that when we were corresponding over
email, I could see you guys definitely we're slotting in gravel
across like an entire calendar year that included these different
disciplines that it's kind of interesting because out here, you
know, a lot of the gravel events just happened in the summertime
and it, it's, you know, who cares if there's a great road race
going on that same weekend, but you've seemed to have taken that to
heart to make it so that someone who just likes all aspects of the
sport can get out there throughout the year and participate in your
events.

Yeah, there's definitely a wide spectrum and more gravel racist
popping up for sure. Especially in New York state. Um, we started
very early in the spring, uh, as sort of what we call the
traditional American style spring classics, um, meaning that, you
know, in, in Europe they're racing cobbles and in the US we got
dirt. So let's race dirt, but let's do it from sort of a road race
perspective. And that's not something we came up with. But really
for me is something that was sort of modeled off of what baton kill
used to do when they were, when they were at UCI race in the way
they kind of pioneered that. And we still kind of stick to that
with the gravel race series. It's early in the year. We have really
hard cold winters. We're in the middle of a really, really nasty
cold spell right now. I'm so early April or mid April. A lot of
people haven't been ride much. The conditions can still be really
cold. We can still have snow. Um, so those early nasty weather kind
of things are what makes the racing sorta gnarly. Whereas the may
be more a ride oriented stuff like we do in, in July is when the
were better weather comes around

in those first years, like five years ago. Were you seeing kind
of your rowdy friends? You might have had a cyclocross bike in the
garage that is their winter bike. Was that, that sort of bike that
they were pulling out at the time?

Yeah, kind of. Um, and even before that, the second race of the
series that, that I put on the first two races of the series, the
second race of the series predates me by, I don't know, probably
five, four or five years. Um, and I did that race several times
before I took it over when the guys just couldn't do it anymore.
But even when I was doing it first in like maybe 2010 maybe it was
the first time I did it, it was a lot of a hardtail mountain bikes.
Um, I actually did it on a full suspension mountain bike, which was
a terrible decision. Um, it was a miserable hard ride for, for that
kind of setup. I was like, when I got done, I was like, I'm never
doing this again. And then the next couple of years I did it on a
cross bike and I was like, okay, yeah, this is a lot more fun.

Um, but at that phase it was a lot of hard tail mountain bikes.
There weren't a lot of racers really doing it, like a lot of road
racers and cross racers weren't really involved in it. It was more
of a sort of a mountain bike ride, adventure ride kind of thing.
And then as cross continued to get popular, it's very popular where
we are. Um, and as some of the early season road races kind of
started to dwindle off, we started to get in more cross racers and
more road racers and now we're seeing more of that sort of gravel
race setup that we're at right now. But it definitely started with
that for the road guys, for sure.

That makes a ton of sense. And have you seen over the course of
the last four or five years ago an evolution in the types of bikes
that are showing up at the event?

Oh yeah. Without a doubt. Um, it was definitely, like I said, at
first it was kind of a lot of hard tail mountain bike. Had some
cross bikes mixed in and you'd see, you know, those hard tails
finishing in the top of the race. Whereas I don't think you would
see that anymore, certainly not in the elite categories, although
there's still some people that are riding them and enter plenty
fast on them. Um, but you're seeing more people experimenting with,
with bigger tires, you know, a lot of it was sort of a traditional
across setup is what guys were bringing, I think when they first
started, uh, now they're experimenting maybe with little wider
tires than what they would run across. We have fat by categories,
so there's people who are doing the whole series on fat bikes, so
it's a pretty wide variety of, of different bikes setups. And I
think that's part of the draw of gravel racing, especially for
those people that are real tech oriented. Is there kind of like I
can play with this and play with that and going a lot of different
directions for their personal setups.

Right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's one of the
things that drove the inception of the gravel ride podcast, which
just that constant analysis of what bike should I be getting to get
into the sport of gravel? And as we talked about earlier, I'm, I'm
definitely curious to talk about east coast versus West Coast for
me, you know, we ended up with a lot of more mountain bike style
trails in Marine county, so a lot of sustained climbing, big
descents. So for me as I got into the sport and it was really
natural that I went to a wider tire, but I'm not convinced that
that would have been the same journey I would have if I was riding
out of the east coast where I grew up.

Yeah, I think that you're seeing probably a for are certainly
for our spring races. I'm a lot more narrow tires, especially for
the guys who are really racing the sharp end of the race. Um, you
had a lot of cross guys who were there that for them, what we're
doing is not that technical compared to what they normally ride. So
they might even run something skinnier than what they run and
cross, especially the pros that come into race it. Um, whereas for
them it's more about the climbing and the distance is a little more
challenging on that end. Whereas the road guys, they might run
something a little bit more because the, the, the technical stuff
is a little more challenging, but the climbing and the distances
less and from a pure race perspective, that's one of the things I
really enjoy about seeing it is that cross section of riders coming
together and it's Kinda like nobody's really good at this yet. And
everybody sort of figuring it out like who's better at it, the
gravel guy or the cross guys, the road guys, and they're kind of
both coming together and, and have strengths and weaknesses. Uh,
you know, in that they both bring.

Yeah, I think that's, that's pretty typical of all off road
racing and that you, you just, you're going to have sections that
you're better at whether it's descending or climbing or technical
switchbacks or what have you. And it's, it's interesting from a
course designers perspective because you can kind of lean into
those attributes as much or as little as you want.

Yeah, absolutely. And so it depends on the available terrain and
the type of available terrain for sure. And what you want to kind
of showcase and what the format of the event's going to be. So if
it's just like our summer event, we're looking at trying to are
looking at that course now where it's not going to be a competitive
race, it's going to be a longer distance and what we put on in the
spring, uh, probably more pavement mixed in a. But for there we
want to find like the most out of the way trails and roads and
things that we can sort of incorporate because people aren't racing
it. So we have a lot more flexibility in terms of where we navigate
people and it becomes a little bit more of that sort of adventure
ride when we're putting on the races in the spring. We've got
Marshall's on every corner and we're really concerned with making
sure that everything's really controlled. So, and we also want
people to be able to safely race the aspects that we put out. So,
uh, the course design and the development a little bit different,
we also end up running into a lot more really thick sticky mud or
sometimes ice and snow because of the time of the year. And that
makes a big difference on what we can send people down and what we
can't sometimes.

Yeah. Given those weather conditions, do you ever have to
reroute course parts of the course?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Last spring, the first race, the series is this
year is April 13th and it was the same weekend last year and we had
a real late winter. It starts out of a ski mountain and the Ski
Mountain was still open for skiing. It never been open that late in
the history of the mountain. And it wasn't good skiing, but there
are people out skiing, you know, it was that sort of last of the
last skiing. So we had to take out a lot of what we call seasonal
use roads, which are just roads that aren't maintained from
typically November, first to April, first, depending on the, on the
township. Um, which gives us, those roads are a lot of fun because
they give us a lot of the real technical, rocky rudy, sort of more
narrow kind of gnarly stuff. They're still public roads, they're
not trails or double track or anything like that, but they do give
you, especially if you're riding a skinnier tire, that more
technical stuff. But with the snow, they don't get plowed there,
don't get salted. So if it's still snow they can be under two inch
ice and we had to reroute because of some of those issues last
year. Right.

It goes. So let, let's get into the dirty bikes gravel series a
little bit more specifically. If someone was coming from out of
town, is there a particular event in the series that you would
point them to, to sort of really get that upstate New York
experience?

Probably the first one is where we frontload most, most of the
event, the biggest one of probably the three M it's a at a ski
mountain. There's lodging that's directly within riding distance to
the start line. So that's always nice. We bring, uh, we have some
good pros who show up. Jeremy Powers is coming to the race, we do a
charity ride with him, a recovery ride with him the next day that
we use to, uh, raise some money for junior development. Uh, we've
got bands and, and parties going on around that weekend. So that's
really kind of the, we make that sort of the big kickoff and kind
of make it the big kickoff regionally have like winter's over. It's
pretty close to over hopefully by then and let's get out race our
bikes. Um, so that would definitely be the one I think if you're
coming from out of town and that's definitely where we get most of
our out of town riders from our at that point in the series.

Yeah, it's nice. I'm going to be in around as long as you guys
have been around. It's, you know, people start to get it in their
calendars and look forward to that push to get fit, you know, so
early in the season. Yeah. Yeah. And it's tough

around here. I mean, it is, it's a, it's a tough time of year to
be really ready to race, but it's kind of a fun way to do it too,
you know, the old calendar and it's kind of shifted a lot is uh,
used to have a lot more traditional road racing in April and I
always kind of remembered just sort of dreading it, like I'm not
going to be in shape and it's, you know, it's just really hard time
of year to be ready to race. Whereas here it's still the same
feeling, but it's also sort of a let's go out and kind of get my
button gear and get me ready for the rest of the season too. So you
have a kind of a mix approach there.

Yeah, it was, it was really interesting when I first moved to
California because there's really no off season here. People seem
to, people seem to be flying from January all the way through
December because the weather's decent, you know, we certainly have
our rainy season, but at the end of the day you can still be going
out and doing these long rides where I know from living on the East
Coast in New Jersey and Massachusetts, like you had to have an off
season because you just simply couldn't be out all winter long for
the most part.

Yeah, for sure. I mean def definitely fat bikes have helped with
that. I'm more guys are riding those and writing stumbled, build
trails and things like that. But. And it was like negative 20 the
last three days here. You know, nobody's outside really doing any
miles. Everybody's on the trainers and inside or just kind of
taking the time off.

Right. And I think you alluded to this. Do you shift the length
and duration of your events, making them longer in the summertime
to kind of account for, hey, no one wants to be out there in a
super cold weather for, you know, four or five hours. Yeah,

absolutely. Our race series in the spring, the dirty book
series, the races are a anywhere from, I mean we have to really
short beginner distances that are 18 to 20 miles and then the elite
and intermediate distances will be anywhere from 35 to 55 partially
because it is cold and sometimes it's, it's 38 degrees and raining
and nobody wants to be out to do 100 miles doing that and partially
because if people aren't artists fit yet and because we do it as a
series, we want people to be able to come back for a couple of
weekends in a row and not sort of crushed themselves with just one
big ride early. Whereas when we get to July we'll do a 100 miles
and you know, 6,000 feet, 7,000 feet and make it more of an all day
kind of thing and if anything there, you're just kind of concerned
with keeping people hydrated and out of the heat and not worried
about those really cold temperatures or that really early season
fitness.

Yeah. The logistics just shift in terms of what you're concerned
about.

Right? Absolutely.

Imagine while his give hats off to promoters because I think
it's, it's a hard job that you do, but I think it's also really fun
being able to design the courses and see how people react to the
different features that you put there. Yeah, that's,

that's always the most fun part about it and a lot of the races
and the rides that we're doing or about rides in courses that my
friends and I do all the time and it's just kinda like, you know,
come check out this cool road or this section that we love to do in
training that we can kind of show people.

Are you ending up hitting singles track sections in some of your
roots?

No, no. We keep everything on, on public roads. Um, just those
seasonal use roads are the only places where we would bring in any
which way it gets a little technical and definitely that time of
year it can be a little dicey for the summer one. I don't know if
we'll have any actual single track mixed in, but we'll play with a
little bit more of those kind of stumbled beal trails. And things
like that, um, that aren't as hindered by the restrictions of kind
of running it more like a race.

Yeah. I'm trying to get sort of in, in talking to event
organizers all around the country trying to get a little bit more
of a gauge of the amount of single track double and fire roads that
are put into the event versus county roads and just
under-maintained roads. And it certainly is location dependent. Um,
but it does play a big role in bike selection. Entire selection
obviously.

Yeah, absolutely. And I wonder too about format because I know
and maybe you could tell me what you're seeing out west around us.
You know, a lot of people are doing that sort of. It's not really a
race, it's more of an adventure ride kind of thing with grandma,
which is cool. And like I said, that's what we're going to do in
July. Whereas, you know, we structured categories and really kind
of functioning as a real, almost a replacement for what road racing
has kind of dwindled on as well as maybe sort of a progress and
making it more open and more inclusive than road racing has ever
been, but still fitting that niche as well. Um, and I'm wondering
how many events that are still doing that race under, including
that single track and that kind of stuff?

Yeah, I would definitely say that judging from what I've seen on
your site, your more structured than the events I tend to
participate in, in California. It's, they're generally mass start
kind of winner takes all. So you're lining up against the likes of
Ted King and everybody else at the start line and they had go and
everybody's off. A couple of unique ones that we've seen out here
would be kind of strava based reporting. Uh, so there's just
sections. So the idea being to encourage, um, racers to, you know,
enjoy the camaraderie of the ride and only focus on being super
intense during, for limited sections I think. I think that's kind
of an interesting format. A lot of the events I've done in, in lieu
of any cash prizes for example, they'll just do a straight up
raffle afterwards instead of giving the winter anything per se. I
know like this year I interviewed the guys over at steamboat gravel
and they're putting a big cash purse out there for the men's and
women's winter and it's interesting and I'm a bit torn because I
personally have enjoyed the more adventure element of it. I have no
problem with the, you know, the top 15 percent of people racing
their asses off, but I know that's not really a world that I'm
going to be participating in per se. So I like the events to make
sure that the mid pack is fun.

Right? Yeah. And that's definitely for. I think we, we hit that
with our races, uh, in the sense that we group our racers, so we'll
do, we have an elite field, we have an intermediate field of sport
field and then we also have masters and junior fields. There's no
licenses required. So you can place yourself wherever you kind of
want to be, but that way if you're going to race your group with
somebody, a group that's, that's closer to your ability. Uh, we
don't, we don't put a ton cash in any of it. I'm not huge into cash
for amateur racing. We put some cash in the series just on the
elite end to try to discourage anybody from sandbagging and picking
up cash in the lower categories, especially without a, a category
or a restriction. I'm putting those into, like I said, it's, it's
hard writing. So even the people who aren't concerned with winning
the race, they're racing there, they're trying to finish the
course, they're racing against themselves, they're racing against
the course or against the group that they fall in with at any
particular time, um, as opposed to just kind of enjoying the
scenery that time of year all the time. Whereas the summer event,
we look maybe more at that end.

Yeah. I think the idea of the day being an adventure and taxing
no matter what or where your practice, whether you're in the front
or the back. I think that's one of those university activities of
gravel racing and rides that makes it great. You know, you're,
you're just out there to test your mettle if so, to speak and have
a good time.

Right. And that's what we want to bring in as well. Keeping note
the road race kind of aspect going as well because if you go to a
road race, you know, and you get dropped in the first whatever,
couple of miles, it's not a challenge to go out and finish that as
a beginner, maybe 25 mile course or is even an intermediate rider,
that 50 mile course, they're usually not like, oh, I can't believe
I made it through that. You could go do that right anytime you
want. It's more about did I keep up with the group or not and if I
didn't keep up with the group, I didn't really enjoy it or I got to
work to come back to do that and there's people who want to do that
and that's awesome, but it makes it a lot less inclusive. Whereas
the gravel racing just finishing the course is hard and the groups
get so spread out, you end up with a group instead of just sort of
being dropped by that big pack, but at the same time that front of
the race can still race and get that road race feel that that group
wants, so it's kind of a nice sort of in between ground that gets
big groups of riders out together putting on an event.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see over time whether
gravel becomes an entry point for other elements of the sport. Like
at this point we're obviously in on the gravel side, we're drawing
from other disciplines. We're bringing new riders in there, buying
new equipment, but we are seeing people buy gravel bikes as their
first performance bike and entering gravel events as the first
organized cycling event they've ever tried. I think it's probably
likely that, you know, over the next decade we're going to start to
see great road racers and great mountain bike racers who got their
start strictly in gravel.

Yeah, I agree. I think you'll definitely see you see that
especially as more road bikes are coming with disc brakes anyway,
so the difference between a gravel bike and a road bike might just
be the tire you put on that day. So you get a really, you know, a
lot of versatility there as people are buying new bikes.

So if people want to find out more about the series a, what's
the best place to find out?

You could register on bikereg.com or you can check out our
website at Ryde, LCC.com. And if you click on the dirty bikes link
there, there's a breakdown of the races and the dates and all that
good stuff. Sweet. Well I'll make sure to put all those links in
the show notes and encourage everybody to check it out. The series
has been around for quite some time, so I know Tony and the crew
over there put on a good day out. So if you're in the area or
making a trip to New York, definitely put these on your calendar
for next year or this year I should say. Yeah, absolutely. Thank
you, man. Cool. Right on. Thanks Tony. Thank you. Welcome to the
podcast, Michael.

Yeah, great. I'm excited to dig into the Lake City Alpine 50.
It's an inaugural event this year and I'd love to start out by just
understanding a little bit about you and your cycling background
and your motivation to bring an event to lake city.

Yeah, so my, my history started in Tucson, Arizona. I'm a, I'm a
Tucson native. It's my, uh, it's my full time residents, but I have
spent many, many years in Lake City, primarily is just a summer
visitor, uh, you know, 30 years ago, uh, started with uh, uh, a Jms
Dakota, a hardtail hardtail. How about fully rigid a bike and uh,
just uh, uh, you know, just exploring a, the desert on a, on a
mountain bike. Uh, I went to Undergrad in boulder, which really
sort of jump started my, uh, love and desire to just be outside
and, and really, um, to, to explore, uh, mountain biking in a
community that, uh, clearly is a, uh, all things outdoors. Uh, I
went to the 1990 world mountain bike championships and slept in my
truck and watched as a John Tomac came ripping by with his crazy
disc wheel, uh, only to crash on course and watches a net over and
took the world championships. So a long history of, uh, of, of
mountain biking and road biking, uh, you know, started about 10, 12
years ago.

Was that world championships in Durango, Colorado, if I recall
correctly.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Amazing. Amazing days. It's, it's remarkable. I suppose it's a
sign of my age, how many people I talked to who kind of were coming
up through mountain biking at that time and uh, you know, how we're
sort of resurfacing now that gravels taking hold over the
world.

Yeah. And I, and I, it's a, it's a wonderful thing. Uh, you
know, the, I, I've, I've found, you know, I'm what, 46 years old,
uh, but what I'm finding is, is my desire to be on the road is, is
waning considerably. As I watched cars veer to the right as
they're, they're texting, uh, you know, get the notion of a
untouched gravel back country roads is, it was appealing to pretty
much everybody.

Yeah, I think it's unquestionable that we live in a lot more
dangerous time when it comes to just the volume of traffic and
certainly the unfortunate nature of distracted driving.

Agreed.

So, uh, I was looking at the map. I'm, you know, I lived in
boulder myself and traveled around to some of the mountain bike
races back when I lived there, but I'd never been to lake city. And
can you describe for listeners where it's located?

Yeah. So Lake City is, is not something that you're going to
discover just driving most of the major byways of, of Colorado.
It's a, it's, it's smack dab in the middle of the San Juan's. It's
surrounded by five slash 15 or sorry, five 14,000 foot peaks and
then sits it incredible elevation of a just above almost 8,700
feet. It's a south of Gunnison, probably 55 miles, I don't know,
three hours north east of Durango. And I'm about an hour and a half
south of crested butte and as the crow flies directly to the, to
the east of telluride, but it's, it's not, it's not an obvious or
an easy place to get to. And it's a small town. There's only
probably 400 year round residents.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think that's the profile of a number
of towns that have become epicenters for gravel cycling.

Yeah. And it makes sense. Uh, you know, there's a lot of, um,
uh, the amazing thing about Lake City, it sits in it. It's the only
city in Hinsdale county, which I believe is the smallest county in
the lower 48, if I remember correctly, and a 98 percent of the land
in Hinsdale County is public. Uh, so there, there's an incredible
amount of, uh, you know, forest service, blm roads, uh, that, that
people can explore there.

That's great. I love when people are taking initiatives to bring
events to communities they know that are off the beaten path. It,
it very much reminds me, my early days in mountain biking where I
would just sign up for something to go somewhere that I'd never
been before and explore what I can only presume was the designer's
favorite loop in that area.

It's funny you say that. Uh, I, I remember, uh, racing in, in
Aspen on the government trail, which at the time I lived in Aspen
one summer and the government trail was single handedly my favorite
mountain bike, a trail that I had ever been on, but I had a
miserable Reyes broke my chain. I think I crashed and somehow lost,
uh, uh, the, the, the joy that the government trail, uh, previously
presented, that can be a mixed blessing. Right.

So with your time that you've been spending in Lake City over
the years, is the root something that came out of some of your
favorite rides while you were there?

Yeah. The difficulty with Lake City, I'm in mountain bike map
specifically as a, uh, you know, you're, you're starting elevation
is high and most rides are gonna. Take you up and then back down,
uh, that we don't have a tremendous amount of, uh, have developed a
single track the way that, uh, pretty much, uh, many of the
communities around certainly crested butte or otherwise even
gunnison to, uh, to the north have done. And so that, that's kind
of. I'm never went Lake City to, uh, the mountain bike map.
However, Lake City does have a gem of a back country loop called
the Alpine loop. It's a, it's a connector of about 65 miles that
starts and ends in Lake City with the loop. But I can drop you into
Silverton and into your ray. A long been popular with jeeps and
Atvs. Um, but, uh, you know, for those who have had the opportunity
to write it, it, it's an incredible place to be.

What type of terrain, if we could drill into the details of
those roads, how under improved are they, so to speak?

Yeah. So it's sort of, um, the, the loop itself against starting
in Lake City and then looping around and ending a kind of goes out,
uh, on a, on a county road, a county maintained road, and it's,
it's pretty smooth and we would feel like a very solid dirt road.
Uh, it'll be, uh, some of the quickest sections of the course as
you head out. Again, county road 20 is what's going to take you up
towards the top of a cinnamon pass at 12,000, 640 feet as you make
the approach towards a kind of a real definitive section of the
road. It, it starts to ramp up and, and the road becomes
considerably more rough. I'm much more of a off road, a jeep trail
to the point where, you know, if you're in a vehicle, uh, you would
want to be in a razor or a four wheel drive jeep. And so, uh, it,
it, as I said, it becomes considerably more difficult as a, as the
miles tick off. And I would say on our course, uh, somewhere around
mile maybe 15 is when all of that starts to kind of kick into
gear.

I'm just sort of scanning through the maps right now and looking
at the elevation profiles and thinking about what that might like
when I was out on the gravel bike.

Yeah. And I, I'd be happy to kind of lay out the course, uh, is,
is, uh, you know, your listeners would get benefit to that.

Yeah. I think, you know, in any course there tends to be these
memorable moments, whether they're by design or simply just the way
it feels on the, on the given day. I'd love to get your perspective
on what do you, what do you think when people are a year from now
talking to their friends about the second lake city, Alpine 50,
what are they going to say that it was most memorable about the
course?

Well, I think the thing that will stick in most people's minds
is just how difficult the writing gets above 12,000 feet. Um, you
know, there, there, there are certainly other rides and races
throughout Colorado that uh, we'll hit that. Um, but you know, on
this course you're going to go over, as I mentioned, cinnamon pass
at 12,060 slash 40, and then you're going to drop back down into,
uh, the animas forks region, an old mining town, and then you're
going to climb the backside a towards engineer passed, which I
believe is the fifth highest passing in all of Colorado at 12,000,
800 feet. The writing, uh, I think people are going to remember
just how slow and creeping, uh, that climbing will be to the top of
cinnamon and the backside of engineer and just how much they're
there. They will likely be gasping for air. It's, it's, it's a lung
buster.

And then how will they feel on the descent? Obviously like
descending off of high mountain passes is one of those things on a
gravel bike that sometimes makes you wish you were on a mountain
bike with a suspension fork. Just given the high speeds. Are a
riders to expect, you know, wide open fire roads or are they, is it
a little bit sketchy on the way down?

Uh, there are sections that if you were, um, you know, if you
were on a solid bike without suspension, um, I, I would, uh, I
would be writing and saying, boy, yeah, I really do wish I had some
form of suspension here or at least a wide enough tires to suck
some of that. It'll be a bit chunky on, on the backside of a, a
sentiment past weeding down into animas forks. And the same would
be true coming off the top of an engineer. Um, I, I think that the,
you know, the, the strong and gifted writers will, will navigate
that course just fine. Uh, but yeah, this courses, it is sort of
that classic quandary of, boy, what, what bike do I choose? Um,
I've, I've actually only ever written it on, on mountain bikes, uh,
from 26 full suspension to 29 hard tail too. Now I ride a seven and
a half steel, a hard tail. It, it will rattle you. I think no
matter what you're on and, and especially considering that you're
looking at an approximately 15 miles descent off the backside of,
of engineer leading back towards the Lake City.

Yeah, that's perfect. I think it sounds like many, in my
opinion, great grovel courses where you're probably going to enjoy
it on the way up and on the way down. You're going to question your
sanity from time to time when you're on a hardtail gravel bike, but
at the end of the day, it's part of the fun and part of the
challenge.

Yeah. And one additional, um, you know, it's, it's a very small
portion of the root or the course, but coming out of Lake City,
we're going to take people up onto some of the recently cut a
single track that heads across the small Lake City Ski Hill. It's
probably about a mile mile and a half worth of single track. Um,
and some tight single track actually up through the woods before
dropping everybody down to, uh, cut a little portion around a Lake
San Cristobal, which is one of the most just glorious lakes in
Colorado. It's a, I think the second largest natural awaken all of
Colorado created by a crazy slumgullion earth flow.

Yeah. I saw some of the pictures on the website. I in the whole
area looks spectacular.

Yeah. It's, uh, it, it, it was like anybody who has spent time
in the San Juan's, um, uh, you know, I think that's another part
that people will, will, uh, just remember, um, is, is just what an
incredible place to just ride a bike.

And what, what motivated you to put together this event?

Uh, kind of twofold. Uh, it turns out that my neighbor John
Coyle, who literally lives in the alley behind us and lake city,
he's a long time sort of summer resident to spent a little bit more
time up there than I do. We both had sort of independently been a
pondering this for a number of years that would be amazing to have
a race on the Alpine loop and uh, we both kind of fumbled around
for a little while on our own joined forces this past summer and
just said, let's do it together and let's get this done. And, uh,
that, that was sort of the genesis of our company called human
powered, uh, endeavors. And, uh, as, as the name actually, uh,
gives you an idea. We're, we're trying to bring a focus on human
powered, uh, events to, to wake city lake city has a little bit of
this tension between, you know, the off road community and hikers
and bikers.

Nothing that's not unusual in any other community, but we wanted
to sort of, um, maybe redefine a little bit what Lake City is
about. Wake city has a, um, one of the most storied, a 50, a mile
off road, sorry, Fifty Mile Endurance runs called San Juan
Solstice, uh, that you has cells out and has a very deep waiting
list every year. And so we wanted to build on that concept. Um, and
for the two of us, it was a little bit about just saying thank you
to lake city. We felt that we have received the benefits of, of
everything that that community has given to us, as you know, summer
residents. And we wanted to find a way for a small town to add one
more event to their calendar. I'm spur some economic development
and to give back to the, the various, uh, community organizations
that could use, uh, some, some funds this year, the beneficiary
will be lake fork, valley conservancy, which is a, a, an
organization that is trying to obviously protect some of the
headwater regions of the lake. Fork valley has wake city, has a
couple of rivers flowing right through it,

right on. Well those are certainly noble motivations to create
the event. And as I said before, it's, it's amazing to me when
individuals like yourself and your partner decide to showcase areas
that they know well and love because I think it just brings a lot
of value to the community. So I know it's a lot of hard work
getting this done and I wish you a lot of success in this first
year running the event.

Well, Hey, I appreciate you allowing us the opportunity to talk
about, uh, we're, we're super excited and uh, obviously, uh, people
can find, you know, the race at a lake city. Alpine 50 is basically
the, the, the, the call, the call name for everything, social media
and our website as well.

Right on. I'll make sure to put all those links in the show
notes.

Perfect. Thank you very much. We're excited to get to the riders
on course.

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About the Podcast

The Gravel Ride is a cycling podcast where we discuss the people, places and products that define modern gravel cycling. We will be interviewing athletes, course designers and product designers who are influencing the sport. We will be providing information on where to ride, what to ride and how to stay stoked on gravel riding.